The Evening Sun Baltimore, Maryland Saturday, April 14, 1962 - Page 4
Wrong Gambit
Bobby Fischer has chosen to move not his knight or his bishop but his lawyer. The long, tedious stalemate in his match series with Samuel Reshevsky has now been transferred from the chessboard to the court. Fischer—who is now 19 and, one hopes, will yet be referred to as Robert—has petitioned for an order enjoining Reshevsky from playing anybody else, if he won't play Fischer.
Their break-off occurred a year ago, with four games still to go in a sixteen-game series, and with the two players tied or with Reshevsky ahead, depending on the outcome of the disputed twelfth game. The details of the dispute mean little to the general public by now. The fact that sticks instead in the mind of an occasional spectator is that 1962 makes it an even 100 years, by most histories, since the end of Paul Charles Morphy's reign as world chess champion, Morphy is still the only American ever to win that distinction. It is a dismal sight when the two leading American chess players observe the centennial by holding a legal scuffle.
As the Russian masters continue play, sharpening their wits on one another and on the best competitors any other country can produce, one is put in mind of the Russians' scorn for the “cult of personality.” In contrast with the present champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, players such as Mikhail Tal do have individuality and mannerisms. But emotionalism and personal likes or dislikes do not interfere with game or match or tournament. In a sport which venerates precedent, the Messrs, Reshevsky and Fischer are setting their countrymen a bad example.
Wrong Gambit 14 Apr 1962, Sat The Evening Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) Newspapers.com
See The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles, California Monday, August 14, 1961 - Page 73 (★), “Chess Champ Forfeits by Failing to Appear” when a Spokesperson for the Fischer-Reshevsky organizing committee explains the reason the time was advanced from 1:30 P.M. to 11 A.M., was to accommodate the referee's attendance at the San Francisco U.S. Open Tournament.
Chess Champ Forfeits by Failing to Appear 14 Aug 1961, Mon The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com
